SELLER: Estate of Martin Zweig
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 125,000,000
SIZE: Big with 6 bedrooms and 6 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As expected and previously reported by Your Mama and just about every other property gossip on the planet, the decadently decadent triplex penthouse of late financier Martin Zweig has finally arrived on the open market with a publicity ensuring $ 125,000,000 price tag and eight lush listing photographs but—alas—nary a floor plan.

Mister Zweig purchased the palatial penthouse in 1999 for a then record breaking $ 21,500,000.

Current online listing details confirm Mister Zweig’s epic, quixotic and downright legendary three floor building topper has: 16 rooms on three floors linked by a private elevator; an impress-the-guests 5-star style staircase plus a private rear staircase for family and staff; a grandiose, hangar-sized living room and several more intimate but still grand reception rooms plus separate private family quarters; five en suite bedrooms and a total of six full and three half bathrooms; five fireplaces; four terraces with 360-degree city and park views; and two dedicated building staffers who provide daily maid service partially paid for by the astronomical $ 31,908 monthly maintenance charges.

Mister Zweig, a man of almost unlimited means who made a fortune when he predicted the 1987 crash of the stock market, was also an author of books on how to win in the financial marketplace, a television pundit and well-known collector of cultural memorabilia. One of the many children who contacted Your Mama about this triplex listing over the last few days—let’s call him Ernie Eagle’eyes—pointed out that within one of the many glass display cases that line the towering walls of the exceedingly capacious mid-floor living room (and can be seen in current listing photos and those published by The Old Gray Lady herself last weekend) there appears to be a white suit that once belonged to Elvis Presley.

Mister Zweig’s extensive collection also includes gold records by the Beatles, several athletic jerseys worn by iconic professional athletes, a few electric guitars and—as again pointed out by Ernie Eagle’eyes—the famous and famously skin tight beaded gown that Marilyn Monroe had to be sewn into in May 1962 before she gave her breathy and historic rendition of the “Happy Birthday” song at Madison Square Garden for President John F. Kennedy. It appears Mister Zweig may have purchased the dress at auction in 1999 for more than $ 1.26 million.

One of Your Mama’s contacts who toils within the high nosed and rarefied air of the uppermost end of the Manhattan real estate milieu told us that he thinks this place could easily fetch $ 90,000,000. We shall see. What do the children think? Discuss.

UPDATE LATER SAME DAY: All the children can thank a little birdie name Tony Newyawk who told Your Mama about a December 2006 article in The New York Times—when Mister Zweig has his titanic triplex on the market at $ 70 millions—that gives an extensive and thrilling history of the so-called “Chateau in the Sky.” A must read for anyone who gives a single real estate whit about this apartment.

listing photos: Sotheby’s International Realty
The Real Estalker

SELLER: Jon Bon Jovi
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 42,000,000
SIZE: 7,452 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Painstakingly preserved middle-aged rock superstar Jon Bon Jovi and his Missus, Dorothea Hurley, coughed up $ 24,000,000 in June 2007 for a sleek and sophisticated, suburban MacMansion-sized duplex penthouse atop a very swank cast iron building in New York City’s tourist-filled SoHo neighborhood.

Thanks to the diligent research of our unofficial (but much appreciated) aide de camp Hot Chocolate we’ve learned that Mister and Missus Bon Jovi have hoisted the nearly 7,500 square foot spread on the open market with a significantly increased $ 42,000,000 price tag.

This isn’t the biggest surprise. Avid real estate watchers may recall that back in the fall of 2011 rumors surfaced on Curbed and elsewhere that the post-reno penthouse was quietly being shopped off-market with a $ 45 million price tag.

A key lock elevator opens directly into the five bedroom penthouse’s upper level main foyer off of which are coat closets and an itty-pitty powder room. Floor to ceiling windows wrap around four sides of the massive main living/dining space that includes a mirrored fireplace and access to both the the posh penthouse’s expansive roof terraces that together total more than 3,100 square feet of fully landscaped exterior living space.

Besides the addition of a lot of beige, brown and—although undoubtedly excessively expensive—very boring furnishings, a quick comparison of the floor plan included with current marketing materials (above) and the one included with online listings from the time of their purchase (see here) show Mister and Missus Bon Jovi made a couple of significant alterations and reconfigurations. When they purchased the penthouse there were two master suites, one upstairs the other downstairs. The upper level master suite—the one we imagine was likely used by the previous occupant as the actual master bedroom—occupied a private wing on the upper level. That space was converted by the Bon Jovis to a media room with adjacent projection room, a puny, window-lined study and a compact guest bedroom with adjoining bathroom.

The master suite was moved to the lower level and includes small entry vestibule that promotes privacy, a 25-foot long bedroom area with a trio of over-sized street-facing windows, a double-sided fitted dressing room and a spacious (if windowless) bathroom with two sink, crapper cubby and double-headed shower. Three more guest/family bedrooms on the lower level each have private bathrooms as does the squeezy staff bedroom that’s tucked up behind the laundry room.

The penthouse has two U-shaped kitchens, one off the main living space on the upper level and the other slightly smaller one off the 1,100-plus square foot so-called “Great Room” on the lower level. Both kitchens are equipped with custom cabinetry and top of the line appliances, natch, but, oddly enough, neither is much bigger than what one might safely expect to find in a mid-priced suburban tract house.

Our brief and entirely unscientific research indicates Mister and Missus Bon Jovi maintain a small but rock star style real estate portfolio that in addition to the Manhattan duplex they’d like to unload and a jaw dropping $ 18,000,000 profit includes (but may not be limited to) a multi-acre river-front spread in quietly ritzy Red Bank, NJ and a large house on one of the finest and most expensive lanes in East Hampton, NY, that they scooped up in August 2004 for $ 7,600,000.

exterior photo: Kate Leonova for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran
The Real Estalker

The real estate gossip grapevine is all atwitter and agog over unconfirmed scuttlebutt that the titanic, 12,000 square foot triplex penthouse of recently deceased financier—and 1987 stock market crash predictor—Martin Zweig is about to hit the (open) market and may well fetch—some chatty Manhattan broker says—between $ 100 million and $ 120,000,000.

The positively palatial penthouse pad, perched proudly atop the super-posh Pierre on Fifth Avenue and purchased by Mister Zweig in 1999 for a then record breaking $ 21,500,000, was previously and long listed from in 2003 until the fall of 2008 with a then unfathomable $ 70,000,000 price tag. At that time listing information showed maintenance charges rang up $ 38,720 per month. That’s a pearl clutching $ 464,640 every year for the privilege of living atop one of the most exclusive—if Old School—hotel and residential towers in all of New York City.

The ever industrious and well-connected kids at Curbed managed to turn up some photos and a floor plan from 1996 that—along with previous reports an old online listings—shows the 16-room suburban MacMansion-sized but oddly configured triplex has—or had—five proper bedrooms, seven full bathrooms plus a tight suite of three half crappers for large parties and events and an additional staff bedroom and bathroom. There are—or were—five functional fireplaces, four terraces, two reception rooms that flank an opera house worthy main staircase, a paneled library and a 42nd floor Grand Salon of—let’s bet honest, children—epic proportions: 2,800 square feet with soaring 23-foot high coved ceiling, three towering arched windows and two sets of 20-foot tall French doors that connect to a pair of corner terraces with panoramic city and Central Park Views.

Cozier living quarters are located on the lowest level, the 41st floor, and include a surprisingly small kitchen and a corner living room with adjoining dining area/study. Other notable amenities include an oddly located sauna—on the 43rd floor opposite two guest bedrooms—and a private elevator that services all three floors of the penthouse.

The impossibly swish Pierre is the same building where a bevy of millionaire, billionaires, potentates and international power players own primary residences and pieds-a-terre. Just to list a couple there’s Harrod’s owner and British royal family hater Mohamed Al Fayed, media tycoon Sumner Redstone and fashion mogul/socialite Tory Burch who lives in a massive 9,000 square foot multi-unit combination spread on the 9th floor that she was granted in her divorce from obscenely rich venture capitalist Chris Burch.

Some of the children who follow these things closely will recall that fashion world icon Valentino’s business partner and man-friend Giancarlo Giammetti sold his art-filled pad at The Pierre last year for $ 8,000,000. He bought the apartment, as it turns out, from Pierre Berge, an antique dealer better known in some circles as the former consort of French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

listing photos: Brown Harris Stevens via Curbed
floor plan: Curbed
The Real Estalker

SELLER: John J. and Christy Mack
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 22,500,000
SIZE: 3,650 square feet, 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms (plus a staff suite)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the fall of 2009, former Morgan Stanley CEO John J. Mack and his wife Christy (reportedly and allegedly) coughed up $ 13,500,000 for a tired but still stunning 33-foot wide Beaux Arts style carriage house with private garage on the Upper East Side owned by high society horticulturist Bunny Mellon who used the 100-plus year old building as a storage facility for her pricey gew-gaws and doo-dads.

Whatever upgrades and renovations Westchester County-based Mister and Missus Mack made to the comely carriage house must be complete—or nearly complete—because they’ve recently tossed their duplex penthouse pied-a-terre atop an historic pre-war condo building on East 63rd Street on the market with an asking price of $ 22,500,000.*

The floor plan included with online marketing materials shows the approximately 3,650 square foot penthouse has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, plus a prison cell-sized staff room with attached bathroom.

The main living spaces are on the lower level and include a 26-foot long room with fireplace that Mister and Missus Mack use as a living/dining room combination. The original dining room is set up in listing photos as a library/den that connects directly through to narrow but recently renovated kitchen.

A long corridor off the entrance hall connects to a small guest/family bedroom with large private bathroom and a large master bedroom with decorative fireplace, three closets and a bidet-equipped bathroom.

Upstairs there are two more guest/family bedrooms, both with two closets and private—not to mention properly windowed—en suite bathrooms. Also upstairs are laundry facilities, a 27-plus foot long all-glass solarium with city views and built-in wet bar and an approximately 625 square foot private terrace furnished with what appears to be a whole lotta high-priced patio furniture designed by Richard Schultz.

Listing information suggests the Mack’s duplex spread was decorated “in the spirit of” the very proper and 5-star Dorchester Hotel in London. As far as we can tell that means it’s all a bit frou-frou, decidedly traditional and a wee bit stuffy but very correct if not exactly exciting.

Property records show Mister and Missus Mack’s property portfolio also includes an 8,512 square foot house on 3-plus acres in Rye, NY, at least five bay and ocean properties—three with houses, two vacant—in the upscale seaside community of Wilmington, NC.

*For the record, property records show this penthouse owned by a corporate entity that links directly back to a residential address in Rye, NY owned, according to property records, by Mister and Missus Mack.

exterior photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
(interior) listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby’s International Realty
The Real Estalker

SELLERS: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 24,500,000
SIZE: 6,792 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since we’ve been ill the last couple days and are, in fact, still woozy with sick and medicine, we’ve gotten well behind the celebrity real estate 8-ball. We notice now we missed a couple of good celebrity real estate stories such and the lower Manhattan duplex penthouse that was pushed on the open market this week by energetic and tawny skinned morning chat show hostess Kelly Ripa and her criminally handsome husband Mark Consuelos. The couple, so the stories go, first attempted to unload their unwanted penthouse over the summer of 2010 when they allowed it to be unsuccessfully shopped off market at an unknown price.

Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos picked up the unusually-ample-for-Manhattan 6,792 square foot penthouse in June 2005 for $ 9,500,000 and spent the next couple of years and—no doubt—many millions more on a massive overhaul. The resulting configuration, according to the floor plan included with listing details (below), provides for five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, two kitchens, two fireplaces and approximately 2,500 square feet of outdoor space thickly landscaped with privacy in mind and a medium-weight nod towards a lush and Zen-ish pan-Asian vibe that Your Mama’s thoroughly unscientific research suggests is favored by celebrities.

The Ripa/Consuelos penthouse has direct, key-lock elevator access into a 14-foot foyer with two windows and two closets convenient for hanging coats and storing other wintertime accoutrement. At 35 feet long, 20 feet wide and more than 12 feet high, the adjoining living room is indisputably spacious and well-lit through five over-sized southeast-facing windows. We’re not sure who’s responsible for the hotel lobby-like day-core but whomever it was was absolutely committed to red as the only accent color in an other wise neutral-toned space finished with dark stained white oak floors, pale parchment colored walls and a coffered ceiling.

The vivid red accent color theme continues right on into the open concept kitchen/dining room where every seating option is upholstered in the same red fabric. The kitchen has a boxcar-sized center island, both marble and blue stone counter tops, a six-burner commercial-grade range, two dishwashers and three integrated refrigerators. Listing details make a point of pointing out that the dishwashers are Electrolux brand, no coincidence when you consider Miz Ripa has shilled for the Swedish household appliance maker for years.

Tucked off a long and wide rear corridor is an unfortunately windowless den/office with wet bar and lots of closets, a half bathroom and a compact service hall with wine refrigerator and a dumbwaiter that efficiently ferries food and etc. to the second floor service kitchen.

The south end of the rear corridor opens to the guest/family bedroom wing where there are three bedrooms, two bathrooms—one a hall bath shared by two bedrooms, the other a private en suite—a built-in homework/computer station, and an unusually large laundry room equipped with two sets of washers and dryers that, if Miz Ripa knows what’s good for her her future spokesperson income, had better be manufactured by Electrolux too.

The northern terminus of the rear corridor opens into the privately situated master bedroom comprised of an entry vestibule flanked by a pair of walk-in closets and a modestly sized bedroom with two west facing windows that ensure morning darkness. the attached two-room, and unfortunately windowless bathroom suite (above) is luxuriously kitted out with radiant heated marble floors, a freestanding soaking big enough for Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos, a separate room for the terlit and bee-day that promotes privacy, and a sexily cantilevered, all-marble two sink vanity surmounted by a wide mirrored expanse.

The penthouse’s second level is easily less than half the size of the lower level but could easily function as a completely separate apartment. The airy dining room (above, left) has a table with—natch—eight red chairs and the nearby galley style service kitchen is surely bigger and better equipped then the vast majority of kitchens in Manhattan. The media room/lounge (above, right), all done up in dulcet shades of gray and white and exuberantly flooded with natural light by a massive sky light, is anchored on its south wall by an austerely monolithic stone chimney breast with an inexplicably and unnecessarily off-center fire box.

There’s also, upstairs, a smallish, fifth bedroom located off a short hallway with a three-quarter bathroom and two more rooms that could be utilized as bedrooms but are shown on the floor plan as a home gym and a small office with a large walk-in closet.

The media room, dining room and gym all open through French doors to the lush landscaped wrap around roof terrace. The media room joins to a south-facing, pergola-shaded outdoor living room with fireplace and television and beyond that a sizable expanse of faux-grass. The dining room opens to the narrow, eastern side that’s shielded from peeping neighbors by a tall row of evergreen trees and outfitted with an outdoor kitchen/barbecue center. The northern end of the roof terrace was privatized with a fence of horizontal slatting fronted by a somewhat anemic looking row of bamboo. There’s a t.v. mounted into the fencing behind the raised hot tub and, tucked around the corner, an outdoor shower. There really are so few wonderful things as showering outdoors and showering outdoors in the middle of Manhattan, well, children, that is a particularly delicious kind of thrilling, isn’t it?

Your Mama isn’t really sure what Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelo’s real estate future holds. We do know that while they remodeled this penthouse they lived in a large rented apartment uptown so perhaps they’re headed thataway. Or maybe they’ve set their sights on some leafy, ridiculously upscale suburb where their three children can live a more bucolic life. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

As far as we know, the only other residential real estate owned by Miz Ripa and/or Mister Consuelos is a totally land-locked, two-ish acre north of the highway estate in Southampton, NY they purchased over the summer in 2004 for $ 2,350,000.

The Ripa/Consuelos penthouse tops a boutique building right on the edge of the SoHo and NoLiTa nabes that may be wee in size but has always attracted an unusual number of high-profile residents. In March 2004 Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton shelled out $ 1,870,000 for a half floor unit and in early 2010 the other half of Mister Denton’s floor was sold to Oscar-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson for $ 3,995,000. In early 2005 a full floor unit on the third floor was sold for $ 6,830,000 to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who sold it about 2.5 year later, in the fall of 2007, for $ 8,000,000. Some say Mister Weinstein never actually lived there but instead used the apartment to shelter visiting celebrities and other Showbiz bigwigs and VIPS, but we really have no idea of the veracity of that scuttlebutt.

The penthouse, the one being sold by Mister Consuelos and Miz Ripa, is widely rumored to have once been owned by German tennis icon Boris Becker who—allegedly—briefly leased it to Nicole Kidman for around forty grand a month.

And, as it turns out, this isn’t the only unit at the red brick boutique building that Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos have owned. In March 2002 they shelled out $ 2,800,500 for a full floor unit on the fifth floor. Property records show they sold the 5,262 square foot unit in January 2006 for $ 7,250,000 to banker Michael Rubinoff who quickly flipped the unit at a substantial loss in November (2006) for $ 6,700,000. The buyer, hotelier Edward Scheetz, didn’t stay long and sold in May 2008 for $ 8,700,000 to private investor Robert Goergen Jr. and his wife Stacey.

listing photos and floor plan: The Modlin Group
The Real Estalker

SELLER: Pharrell
LOCATION: Miami, FL
PRICE: $ 16,800,000
SIZE: 9,080 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little canary down in South Beach flew by the other day and let Your Mama know that uni-named Grammy-winning songwriter/producer/rapper, art collector, entrepreneur and sartorial daredevil Pharrell has hoisted his titanic tri-level penthouse condo in Miami, FL on the market with a sky-high asking price of $ 16,800,000.

Property records show Mister Pharrell picked up the penthouse in March 2007 for $ 12,525,000 from a well-known property developer and it wasn’t long before he was involved in an ugly legal imbroglio over numerous water leaks that came, according to at least one online report, from “at least six sources in the home, such as the penthouse pool, plant watering system, and Jacuzzi.”

Current listing information shows the sprawling, 40th floor penthouse measures a suburban mansion-sized 9,080 square feet with five bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms and knee-knocking 360-degree city, bay, ocean and causeway views.

In December 2010 Mister Pharrell had the art-filled aerie photographed for The Selby—if you don’t know The Selby, then you should—and in July 2011 he had dextrous design writer and international style maven Mayer Rus all up in there to do a piece for W Magazine. Based on the lush photographs from both of those shoots it seems that Mister Pharrell may (or may not) have moved out much of his personal belongings, in particular his Ms. Pac Man and Galaga video game consoles, his colossal collection of sneakers and his impressive contemporary art collection that includes significant works by name-brand artists such as Takashi Murakami, Keith Haring, KAWS, and Andy Warhol.

The capacious main floor living/dining room has chestnut colored wood floors, a curving ribbon of nearly floor to ceiling glass with terrace access and panoramic water views, a built-in buffet in the dining area and a built-in entertainment center in the living area with a massive flat screen television. A floating staircase connects the main floor to the second floor landing where a gravity defying spiral staircase corkscrews up to a third floor lounge underneath a spectacular and downright Herculean frosted glass dome that defines the triple height space and for some reason isn’t shown in any of the listing photographs we dug up online.

Listing photographs do show the penthouse is luxuriously equipped with a sleek center island kitchen, a six (or maybe nine) seat home theater with plush red leather recliners and paneled walls, a billiard room on the second level mezzanine and library/lounge with built-in bookcases and a smattering of multi-colored modern furniture including the naughty-naughty Perspective chair, designed several years ago by Mister Pharrell in conjunction with the French product manufacturing concern Domeau + Pérès. The chair, in case any of y’all aren’t familiar, has human-shaped legs. The front legs are those a woman on her tippy toes and the back legs those of a flat-footed man. Mister Pharrell says the chair “represents the love between a man and a woman” but Your Mama—like most people—see the chair as a not very abstract depiction of the couple doing it doggy style.

Anyhoo, the master suite has a bedroom with watery view and direct terrace access, a big bathroom slathered in inlaid marble and what Mister Rus in W Magazine called a “steroidal closet…filled with a teenager’s fantasy trove of Technicolor sneakers.”

Three levels of vast terraces offer unparalleled all-around views, an outdoor summer kitchen, miles of tiled planter boxes, a spa and a plunge-sized swimming pool beneath a muscular, vine-draped pergola.

Property records show Mister Pharrell—recently engaged to his long-time lady friend and baby momma Helen Lasichanh with whom he has young son named Rocket Mann Williams—still owns the 9,116 square foot waterfront mansion in his hometown of Virginia Beach, VA that he bought way back in December 2001 for $ 1,850,000.

We really have no idea what real estate plans Mister Pharrell may have up his sleeve but in the W Magazine article he mentioned that his residential real estate fantasies include maverick architect Frank Gehry designing him a “Wyne Manor-style mansion” and avant garde architect Zaha Hadid doing him a domicile “that is partially submerged in the ocean.” So there’s that…

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews

The Real Estalker